Simulating sensitive clay landslides
Sensitive clays are commonly found in Scandinavia and Canada. Due to its original deposition below sea level, sensitive clay differs from other clays because it has been washed out of salt over time. Consequently, this clay is unstable and can almost float as a liquid if overloaded. The EU-funded project uses a high-performance computing framework to simulate the entire process of sensitive clay landslides, from initiation to final deposition.
We hope to gain a better understanding of the landslide mechanism, both on land and under the seabed. A landslide model is complex, and a typical 3D simulation requires tens of thousands of CPUs such as the simulation of the Gjerdrum landslide. This requires extensive computing resources provided by Sigma2, to develop new algorithms and perform large-scale simulations.